Annie Love Sunshine

this is her. 

photo credit to @thepaulist

we'll have been married for five years in april. we'll have been together a fifth of my lifetime.

we've grown up together. grown old together. grown young together.

she's the one my thoughts wander to when we're apart.

she's the smile I come home to.

she's the one I dream with. together we can take on anything: nothing is too small, no feat is too large.

she keeps me warm, fed, clothed, housed.

she encourages me when I'm down.

she instills wonder in the every day.

she makes me more myself.

she's my best friend. my lover. the poem in my heart. the song in my soul.


I love her.

Cafe Takesi Bolivia

When Zoka Coffee Roaster and Tea Company proclaimed a few weeks ago that it would be selling a limited amount of the highest grown coffee in the world, I put a note in my calender and dug out my Groupon. I have a penchant for coffees grown at higher elevations. As one climbs, I feel that the fruit and flower notes come to the fore, especially as the coffee cools.

Cafe Takesi is cultivated at elevations between 6200' and 8500', an almost absurd height for coffee. The highest coffee I've ever had previous to this was George Howell's Terroir Coffees El Vergel, grown at 6100' (if you recall I raved about it last July). Cafe Takesi takes its name from the river valley where they are grown. This coffee won a Cup of Excellence in 2009 as well; no small feat. Apparently the Inca Trail runs right through the farm, other than placing it on the Western side of the Andes, that fact hasn't helped me find the location of either the river valley or the farm. Maybe I'll ask Jeff Babcock this weekend when I'm in Seattle.

My 12oz of these sold-out beans arrived last night and I just made a cup after coming home from pilates (so good to be back in the swing of having a core). 

I filtered a fresh pot of water, ground up 26g, prewetted my paper Hario v60 filter, and slow poured 12oz at 204 degrees. The bloom was amazing. I need to wait ~40 seconds next time for a denser puck and a better pour. Nevertheless, it turned out well.

Like the El Vergel, this coffee has definite belgian ale lightness, almost floating to the roof of your mouth. Smooth, syrupy going down, finishing with a bread/yeast/graham cracker like taste. The fruit notes are super complex. Oranges, raisins... well, smells like citrus and feels like raisins. Chewy almost. Mellow. Sugary, but in a super subtle way. Like a sweet potato or a beet.

I'm going to have to ponder this one; one of the more complex coffees I've had. 

happy sipping!

end of month update

Hello friends!

while I have not been writing a lot here, I have been writing vast amounts elsewhere. sorry for the quietness. here's what has been going on:

we visited philadelphia last weekend to visit some dear friends: beautiful city, lovely times. can't wait to go back.

i've been catching up on school: reworking a 40-50pg paper, writing blog posts for kaplan, really getting into classes & notes for those classes. i love all my work, it's just a matter of not letting it overwhelm me.

my business partner paul and i have been hammering out a logo design for fizzy media, our new llc w/meggie, a good friend of mine & bril artist. we're also setting up a few sites for some clients and working on getting our company's page off the ground. loving being an entrepreneur. deeply.

applying for jobs and networking in seattle, where I want to be this summer. part of me just wants to focus on web development, but a legal job is crucial for further career development. honestly, i love law as well, so really its just a matter of finding a job that combines the web and law. shouldn't be too hard, right?

working out some good transitions w/the wifey: from student to breadwinner for me and from breadwinner to stay-at-home mother/blogger/crafter/photographer extraordinaire for her. it's a new stage of life and we're incredibly blessed and excited for it. excited to be a father to this little girl, hopefully some day soon.

getting back into running: ~ 20miles a week. took last week off b/c my lower legs always take a bit to catch up and injuries suck.

really learning to leverage the various social medias available to us: tumblr, twitter, readers, plugins, codes, all kinds of brilliance all over the place. it's awesome to be riding this technological wave.

anyway, i'm going to be in seattle this weekend and the beginning of next week in a slew of interviews and meeting. look for some coffee posts before too long! in the meanwhile, check my updates on tumblr and twitter. some amazing beauty and interesting ideas to be had.

namaste my friends